1
Each time I buy a new didgeridoo
I like
to wander for a month and find
out
what it can
do
by busking in the echo
-tiles of an underpass
and under the roof
-acoustics
of storefronts
it was winter, north
enough, I thought, but Rain
travelled the sky
in armadas of dark ships
and I left
at home
the unexplored
instrument
and rode trains with manuscripts
calligraphic with Edit
it might be
age, and comfort
of addiction
but as the heavy
boats fired across the harbour
rainbows, and hail stones
loudened bus trips
instead of the
unlocked hotels
of the homeless
I stayed in
a mixed dorm
the oldest man amongst
the assorted
colours and
cloth, travellers crotch,
the smell of the month
with womens’ unwashed
underwear rustle-y
in plastic shopping bags
beneath the bunk
other men my age
have paid their houses off
their children left
by wives and are
become grandparents
some of them
of Business flops
or minor titans
of mercantile
gusset
these mornings you
will find me on
the end of
a toilet brush
or an industrial
Allen key
opening the mouth of
municipal rubbish
bins
Thank you, men… As an explanation: I stay afloat in full-time work by projecting into the future where I will again exist in a more troubadour fashion, and I’m hoping, expecting…the interest for these two opposing lifestyles will not diminish as I age;
Hear, hear, what ‘poesie’, as David Mitchell would say, that ‘minor titans / of mercantile gusset…’. How many poems can you find the word ‘gusset’ in and used so splendidly! I’ve paid off my guitar at least…
other men my age have paid their houses off as well. can relate to this, Dean.